The Pittsburgh Steelers used the 21st overall pick in the most recent draft on Max Iheanachor, and they are not asking him to solve right tackle right away. That is the part that matters now: he was taken high, but the job is still ahead of him.
For anyone searching his name today, the reason is simple. Sports Illustrated drew a line from Iheanachor to Andrew Thomas, the kind of comparison that turns a rookie tackle into a measuring-stick case rather than just another draft pick. Thomas was named to the Second Team All-Pro in 2022, and he allowed four sacks or fewer in each of the next three straight seasons from 2021 through 2023, which is the level of consistency that explains why the comparison carries weight.
The Steelers believe Iheanachor can grow into that sort of role over time, with Troy Fautanu on the other side and a future built around two young tackles. That is why the selection made sense even with other talented players on the board. In a draft, teams do not always choose for the first Sunday; sometimes they choose for the third or fourth season, when the cost of getting it wrong becomes far higher.
Daniel Jeremiah’s comparison to Tytus Howard offered one path for how Iheanachor might develop, but the Andrew Thomas benchmark points to something bigger. Iheanachor is being described as big, athletic, nasty at the point of contact and an incredibly hard worker, the sort of profile teams use when they think the ceiling is still in front of the player. That framing does not fit a quick promotion.
The friction is obvious. A 21st overall pick usually comes with immediate expectations, yet the Steelers are signaling that Iheanachor will have to earn the right tackle job instead of inheriting it. That makes his first months in Pittsburgh less about winning a starting spot than about proving the traits that made him worth the pick in the first place.
So the real question is not whether Iheanachor belongs in the future plans. It is when the Steelers decide that future has arrived, because everything in their evaluation points to a player they want to trust for years, not a rookie they need to rush.
